Matthew Spears's Friends

View All

Matthew Spears's Groups

Neighbourhood Food Netwo…

294 members
34 Comments 31 Likes

View All

Matthew Spears's Page

Profile Information

In which Vancouver neighbourhood or other community do you live?: Fairview

Please tell us which areas of Transition interest you. For example: growing more food/urban agriculture, relocalizing our economy/local currency, Permaculture, transit, energy efficient buildings, the arts, urban homesteading, preserving seed diversity, placemaking, potlucks, outreach, organizing events, community-building, having fun while saving the world, or...: relocalizing, the arts, potluck, community building

There's a saying that "Transition is not a spectator sport". It's true! Village Vancouver runs on people power, and engaging in activities and projects together helps us accomplish more. Which groups, networks, neighbourhood villages, or projects do you think you might be interested in getting involved with? And what knowledge, skills, resources or other assets can you bring to the mix? (Don't be bashful!): not sure yet!

What would you like to see improved in Vancouver or in your community regarding sustainability or resiliency? Do you have an idea for a new Transition project or activity?: more true community living. Loved visiting a real intentional community (Twin Oaks) and curious how anything close to that can be in a big city.

I agree to read and abide by the Site Guidelines under the About tab on the navigation bar, remaining respectful in all communications on this web site.: Yes

Comment Wall (1 comment)

You need to be a member of Village Vancouver to add comments!

Join Village Vancouver

At 9:24am on October 8, 2010, Randy Chatterjee said…: Welcome to the Main Street Neighbourhood, Matthew.

I have also spent time at Twin Oaks, living there for 2 weeks 20 years ago. It seems there are too few urban "Walden 2s," although I think that has much to do with the generally busy, distracted, and externally-focused mindset of urban dwellers. This is of course a stereotype, but you can imagine it is easier to coalesce into an intentional community when there's little else to do in town.

That said, the Riley Park neighbourhood is crossing our fingers that the 15-acre Little Mountain Housing site--where 270 low-income apartments were demolished last year in advance of a sale to a Malaysian developer--will see its high-end condo development plan fall through. This would make the perfect coop community, and its size and beauty adjacent to QE Park would be conducive to designing it as a more self-contained ecovillage with aspects of the kind of community Twin Oaks has created. Little Mountain Neighbourhood House has plans to relocate there, and could become the hub of this tight-knit, sharing-based community.

So many possibilities, just too much focus in Vancouver on money and glitz.

There is nothing like a real estate collapse to help make things like this happen.

Meanwhile, I hope you made it to our Potluck on Monday. We are going to hold a visioning and planning meeting next to organize more local events and projects to improve our neighbourhood and its sustainability, and just inject more fun into "no-fun town."